Customer Reviews

Refuge from the Reich: American Airmen and Switzerland During World War II

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With a world war blazing around all your borders, it is not so easy to maintain your neutrality. Switzerland, a tiny republic encircled by fascist tyrannies, managed just that difficult feat during World War 2. Three circumstances worked in its favor in achieving this policy. Switzerland had:

(1) an armed and trained populace (2) an almost impenetrable terrain in its Alpine fortress (which covers most of the country) and (3) a strong and tested tradition of honest, and heavily armed, neutrality stretching back to the Middle Ages.

Switzerland's good fortune was also good luck for others, including 1700 American airmen, who, during the course of the war, found safe haven in Switzerland when their ships were crippled in combat and some 100,000 internees and escaped POWs from many armies, as well as about 200,000 civilian refugees.

Well-armed and neutral, Switzerland still had to defend its sovereignty and people not just from the Nazis, but on occasion, from stray American bombers, as well, as Stephen Tanner documents in "Refuge from the Reich," his exciting account of this chapter of the air war over Europe and American airmen's seeking sanctuary in tiny Switzerland.

Ground armies and air armadas swirled along the Swiss borders from June 1940 to May 1945. From time to time, soldiers crossed Switzerland's borders, by land and by air, to find themselves interned "for the duration." In all, over 100,000 soldiers and airmen were interned in Switzerland during the war, including approximately 1700 American aviators, mostly the crews of heavily damaged B-17 and B-24 bombers that could not make it back to their bases in England or Italy.

The first American airmen began arriving in Switzerland in August 1943, as 8th and 15th Air Force began their heavy daylight bombing campaigns over southern Germany. In 1944, as many as ten crippled aircraft might land there in a given day. Stephen Tanner tells the story of the fortunate airmen who made it safely down to Swiss soil -- and also tells the sadder tale of their crewmates who died in crashes or who fell short and ended up in German stalags.

Mr. Tanner has written a compelling narrative history, briefly tracking the evolution of the democratic Swiss Confederation from its origins in the heart of medieval, monarchist Europe, and also describing the development of strategic air power and its application in Europe during World War 2. He gives a running account that weaves the stories of the American aviators and the little democracy's tenacious defense of its independence and scrupulous adherence to the Geneva Conventions. Tanner combines a "top down" strategic overview with "bottom up" personal narratives of the surviving aviators very successfully.

"Refuge from the Reich" is also a very moving book . You will find the stories of the US airmen buried in the cemetery in the Swiss town of Munsingen. You will find accounts of airmen wanting back in the fight and mounting hundreds of successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) escapes, often with the help of US embassy personnel and ordinary Swiss citizens. You will find, too, tales of the infamous little camp at Wauwilermoos, under the command of the corrupt Nazi sympathizer, Captain Beguin, where discipline cases and unsuccessful escapees alike were sometimes sent for punishment. You will find accounts of the U.S. Army Air Force's bombing of Swiss towns and cities in error -- of the bombing of Schaffhausen with 50 dead, and even of Zurich and Basel with less tragic results. Mostly you will find the humanity of the Swiss people and the young American airmen on display, as they encounter each other in the midst of world war.

"Refuge from the Reich" does a very nice job of combining strategy and diplomacy with dangerous missions, hazardous landings, escapes and captures, a little espionage and intrigue, and a most illuminating portrait of a neutral people surviving in the shadow of world war.

Refuge From The Reich: American Airmen And Switzerland During World War II tells the riveting story of how U.S. airman, shot out the skies by the Germans, parachuted, crash-landed, or otherwise escaped to Switzerland. There they encountered a country where food and heat were rationed, where every man was an armed solider subject to instant mobilization to counter the German threat. It was a small, mountainous country swarming with internees, refugees, and expatriates seeking protection from the certain death that awaited them from the Axis powers. By the end of the war there was a firm and pervasive sense of respect between the U.S. airmen and the Swiss who had given them secure protection from the Germans. Refuge From The Reich is a valued and informative contribution to the annals of World War II's European theater.

The courage of the Swiss during World War II has never before been so completely or accurately portrayed as in Refuge from the Reich. Long viewed as a neutral, unimportant footnote in WWII history, Switzerland was actually a crucial lifesaver for many US airmen during the conflict. Tanner uses exciting first-hand accounts of planes falling from the sky and Swiss pilots coming to the rescue to point out that, though neutral, Switzerland took an active part in protecting its country and those who entered uninvited.

The crux of the book is the sequence of events leading to and from internment--a forced type of stay required of downed flyers who landed in neutral countries during the war. American flyers came down in the hundreds to survive burning wreckages, all because Switzerland was there to protect them.

Tanner manages to make the Swiss seem at once sympathetic and demanding of their interned soldiers, reminding the world that the Swiss were in a precarious situation that they somehow survived unscathed. For the honest depiction of Switzerland alone this book should be part of every WWII student's collection. Far too much of recent literature about the Swiss has focused (wrongly) on their banking policies to allow this other role to be ignored. To know what really happened--to know about the hardships they suffered, the simple life they espoused and survived by--Refuge from the Reich is a book worthy of buying. WWII buffs in general will love the airwar sequences too; Tanner managed to find some truly thrilling crash-landing stories.

Although Mr Tanner's previous books about military history were not so impressive in terms of accuracy or comprehensiveness, this one is a real gem and is the best account of Switzerland as a refuge for US fliers during World War II. The first chapters cover a short history of Switzerland as well as the origins of the aerial war in Europe and then follows the main story with a wealth of first hand accounts. Bravery, luck and terror are interwooved in these stories of the old warriors and there are also many facts about the general picture of the internment in Switzerland. Probably the most enjoyable part of the book was that about the conditions of life that the US fliers experienced at Adelboden, Wengen and Davos and the many attempts they made to escape from there in order to rejoin their units. Very well researched and written book!

"Refuge From The Reich" by Stephen Tanner. Subtitled: "American Airmen And Switzerland during World War II. Sarpedon, Rockville Center, NY, 2000.

More than a decade ago I was working on my MA Thesis (History) and I thought I had written a stellar chapter on the events of the year 1968. You'll recall: LBJ's refusal to run, the assassinations and the violent Democratic National Convention in Chicago. My thesis advisor said "Nice Writing! But, what's the point?" He was correct; that elegant chapter did NOT advance my main point one iota. In fact, the chapter was good background but, beyond that, the chapter did not deal with my subject matter.

And that is exactly what the author, Stephen Tanner, did in this book, "Refuge From The Reich". The author's first chapter, "Crashlanding" really grabs you. That chapter deals with the B24 Liberator named "Ginny Gal", and how the crew used Switzerland as a refuge from the Nazi ME109s which were chasing the aircraft.

But then, Mr. Tanner jumps to Chapter 2, entitled, "The Herdsmen", where the story cannot be told "...without looking at the history of that small European nation..." Page 21. All of a sudden, we are back in the year 58 B.C. and my thesis advisor's voice is in my head, saying "What's the point?" If the author wanted to present a case for the neutrality of Switzerland, I would have preferred an analysis of the four neutral states in Europe, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Ireland was "neutral" but leaned to assisting the Allies. Switzerland was "neutral, but leaned towards assisting the Fascists. The reader struggles to page 38 and we are finally finished with the abridged history of the cantons of Switzerland.

But then, the author does not get back to his central theme. Rather, he writes a stellar chapter on the theory of airpower, beginning with how the Boeing people named the B17, "The Flying Fortress". If, howsoever, you would like an alternate view of "Airpower", I would suggest the German view in the book, "The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945" by Jörg Friedrich (Author), Allison Brown (Translator

So, do we get back to the central subject? Not really. Not yet. The next chapter is entitled" Blitzkrieg", and happily, some of the efforts of the Swiss air force to keep the Luftwaffe from flying into Switzerland or over Swiss borders, are recorded. Then, we get a chapter on the political crisis in Switzerland, and then a chapter on daylight bombing, and then "Armed Neutrality", and then, on page 105, we have Pearl Harbor and the sneak attack of the Japanese on December 7, 1941. The book is some 263 pages long, so some 40% of the book is devoted to this "background" material.

The remainder of the book DOES deal with American airmen interned in Switzerland, with a very good chapter on the infamous camp at Wauwilermoos. I did enjoy his writing and the story he told. I would give five stars for the good writing but only one star for the organization of the book. Average = three stars.

The author, a historian, discusses the role of Switzerland during World War II as a safe haven for Allied bombers which were hit during air raids in Germany. Instead of trying to make it back to England or Italy, the pilots attempted to fly to Switzerland where they were treated much better than if they had fallen into enemy hands. The vast majority of the Swiss were in favor of the allies. Switzerland was the only predominantly German speaking country which did not want to be annexed by Hitler. The author describes the various defenses that the Swiss put up which would have made it very difficult to conquer for the Nazis to just come in and take over the country. Switzerland's fierce independence, and the natural defense of the Alps provided a strong deterrent to the Nazi regine.
166 United States bombers landed in Switzerland after getting hit by German AA or fighter planes. The United States bomber squadrons in Europe suffered the highest rate of casualties during World War II.

The author traces the history of Switzerland's role during World War II and the fate of these crews who landed in Swiss territory. Not a well known story to most Americans.
Highly recommended for those with an interest in the European theatre of World War II.

Tom Kirsch

Stephen Tanner's Refuge From The Reich is a compelling and informative account of the treatment of civilian and military refugees, escapees, and evadees at the hands of the Swiss under the military authority of General Henri Guisan during the Second World War. Interned at ski resorts for the duration of the war, the U.S. officers and men were afforded the same sparse allowances, poorly heated accommodations, spartan living conditions, and subsistence diets of 1,500 calories per day that characterized the lives of Swiss burghers, who were then as dependent on Germany for foodstuffs and coal as their current descendants are for tourism, and whose antipathy to Germans remains a part of the Swiss national character today. The airmen's boredom and eagerness to return to the fray are convincingly depicted, as are their often successful attempts to escape and the deplorable, substandard conditions at the prisons (principally at Wauwilermoos, the swamp of Wauwil) to which they were sent if caught - generally by the Swiss army, since the civilian population usually abetted such efforts, helping the fliers reach the French underground at Annecy. The work limns in great detail the singularity of a determinedly independent, heavily armed, and, in the interior mountainous regions, largely impregnable democratic state existing in the midst of Nazi-occupied Europe and providing the only proximate refuge for thousands of airmen trapped in damaged and otherwise doomed planes, which often were guided to safe landings at the Dubendorf airport and elsewhere by the Swiss air force. The planes bore such nicknames as Dinah Mite, Touchy Tess, Twat's It To You, and Est Nulla Via Invia Virtuti, the last - an allusion to the Sybil's encouragement to Aeneas in Ovid's Metamorphoses, and rendered in English as "No path is impassable to courage" - christened by an educated pilot named Martin Andrews, who later became a courier for U.S. spymaster Allen Dulles. Quite well written, the book can be criticized mainly for its tendency to whitewash the pilots' motives in escaping to Switzerland by asserting and attempting to document that there was not a single instance of a physically uninjured airman diverting an undamaged, well fueled bomber or fighter craft to Switzerland in order to escape the stresses of combat. Similarly, the work characterizes Allied bombings of Basel, Schaffhausen, and Zurich as invariably accidental strafings by disoriented pilots lost in cloud cover. For the view that such attacks were at least sometimes motivated by a clear intention to destroy industrial plants whose output contributed to the Wehrmacht's war effort, the reader is directed to Paul Erdman's factual if often maligned novel, The Swiss Account.